The Alabaster Bonobo: Progenitor of Chaos

The Following is the first Short Story to be brought from my Short Story course to the site. Expect many more. Not necessarily of this quality (or perhaps better quality).

It has been five weeks since Deprideo first laid eyes upon the block. An innocent looking cube of Alabaster resting silently upon his workshop table. Not a matter of desire, or lack thereof, had hindered the old man’s progression-nay it was a matter of creativity. He wanted greatly for this to be the greatest of his creations, for this to be the sculpture to end all sculptures.

This would be his child, his legacy, a testament of his skill for all to behold. But to what would he honor with its visage? He could not make it in the image of kings, for too gloated the ego of man for he to feel the sting. It would have to be something lesser, something that amidst a wine induced stupor could be mistaken, neigh be charged with humanity.

Carefully and passionately he slid his calloused fingers across the top of the cube. With each twist of the hand and caress of the palm he stared deeper into it.

There is a point in a man’s life when he begins to hear things, it is not insanity but instead the creeping grasp of death slowly weakening the walls between this world and the next. It was for this reason, and this reason only, that the faint whistle echoing in his mind did not frighten him.

"Who may I ask is this?" Deprideo asked curiously. "Who has decided to take refuge within this old jokers mind?" A silence befell his mind, of all the things to hear this was decidedly the least helpful. A pop echoed out followed by a whisper. "You can hear me?"

Deprideo leaned against his work table and looked up at the thick wooden beams of his basement ceiling. "I believe the more pertinent question is just who is ‘me’?" Deprideo quipped. A light, almost sarcastic chuckle came fluttering through his mind. "Ah this is good. You are perfect."

The old man puffed his chest momentarily. "Now tell me something I don’t know." He jested. The faint image of a grin formed within his mind. "Your right kidney is smaller than your left one." The old man rubbed the left side of his lower back. "That explains a lot." He then gazed up once more, as if hoping to see into his own head. "So again with the original question. Who are you?"

The voice returned. "I go by many names, but you can call me by that which I am more popularly known: Calamity." Deprideo’s eyes grew wide as if gazing upon the guillotines approaching caress. "To what do I owe this honor? To what reason would you bless me with this visit?"

A pulsing cloud of a thousand colors washed about in Deprideo’s brain, it was the form of Calamity. In a flash the old man found himself standing within his own consciousness, his body but a shell standing rigid and lifeless against the edge of his work table.

"Quite a trick!" Barked the shocked Deprideo. "I’ll chock this up to a new experience indeed!"

Calamity grew closer to the old man as its form battling against itself in an attempt to take some solid form, something more acceptable for conversation amidst that of constant matter. Slowly the image of a human, genderless and awash with an incalculable swath of color, stood before him. "What you have in your possession is my essence Deprideo." Calamity pointed to a hole in the black wall of Deprideo’s mind, he found himself now peering down upon the block. A surreal moment as he gazed from within his own self out his eyes as if they no longer were a part of him.

His hands began to move around the block, chisel in hand. Each strike natural, his years of training revealed with each perfect stroke of the wrist. Calamity approached him from behind hands resting upon Deprideo’s shoulders, whispering into the artisans ears. "You will take this seed of mine and from it you will construct the most elegant Bonobo. Thereupon you will send it to he who wronged you the greatest. From there the cogs of chaos shall begin to turn and there will be but one who is safe from its twisting teeth."

Calamity walked in front of Deprideo and stared into his eyes, Calamity’s own eyes reflecting like pools of mercury.

"By your hand I will return to this world. You will become the Progenitor of Chaos, the father of a god." Calamity softly placed a hand upon Deprideo’s wrinkled cheek. "Is this not the dream of every aging man? To leave behind a great legacy?"

In a flash Deprideo found himself standing before a finished statue. A tribute to perfection, not a single strike out of place, not a single mark without purpose. Before him was a statue so real that he swore it would begin to move anytime. In the reflection of its eyes came the most startling revelation of all as Deprideo saw his own face.